Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One that serves as a leader or as a leading indicator of future trends.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A wether or sheep which leads the flock, usually carrying a bell on its neck.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A wether, or sheep, which leads the flock, with a bell on his neck.
- noun Contemptuous Hence: A leader.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The leading
sheep of a flock, having a bell hung round its neck. - noun Anything that
indicates future trends . - noun A
stock orbond that is widely believed to be anindicator of the overallmarket's condition .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun sheep that leads the herd often wearing a bell
- noun someone who assumes leadership of a movement or activity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In their books second chapter, What We Can Learn About Service from Scandinavia, Albrecht and Zemke turned to Sweden, which they referred to as a bellwether country because of a business approach developed there called service management.
Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us Emily Yellin 2009
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If you watched ABC news wednesday evening, they showed my county, Bucks County, which they characterized as a bellwether county.
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If you watched ABC news wednesday evening, they showed my county, Bucks County, which they characterized as a bellwether county.
OpEdNews - Diary: Bush and Joe, the turncoat, LIeberman 2005
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Perhaps Joe and I should be flattered -- after all, one definition of "bellwether" is "a person or thing that takes the lead" (that's from Random House).
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* And Dems are on defense in bellwether state of Ohio: GOP candidates are aggressively challenging at least six House Dem incumbents -- and are leading in a Senate race by double digits -- in a state that's generally seen as the nation's leading battleground.
The Morning Plum Greg Sargent 2010
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You can follow the ins and outs of the EU-Turkish accession negotiations for all you are worth but, as we have remarked several times on this blog, the real bellwether is the military.
Lightning II strikes Richard 2006
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Cambridge: but the monosyllable represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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US Energy Efficiency projects - popular in Voluntary Carbon markets New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme - Crossover Transport Software Solutions for Electric Cars RGGI-Analysis of the first US Auction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions FedEx is sometimes referred to as a bellwether for the U.S. economy.
Cleantech Blog 2008
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The first of 175 consolidated California cases went to trial last summer, a suit the judge called a "bellwether."
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Virginia likes to be known as the bellwether of how elections will go in the rest of the United States, and perhaps no race fits that category more than the one Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher is fighting.
This year's Florida? It's Rick Boucher in Virginia Paige Winfield Cunningham 2010
brtom commented on the word bellwether
"And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes and shearling rams and lambs and ..."
Joyce, Ulysses, 12
January 13, 2007
jinglebelljosie commented on the word bellwether
A contemptuous term for a ring-leader whose lead is followed in an unquestioning, sheep-lie fashion. ---Foyle's Philavery
March 5, 2009